Just wanted to share my experience with you guys I had last week here in London. My company organised a "Flight Awareness" course at Heathrow Airport. We did the following things:

-Slides! A lot of talk is going on about slide evacuations and how dangerous they are. I finally got to do a slide, of course not a congested one like a real evac but just to see how it's like. It was a 737/320 height slide. I can tell you the "brake pads" at the bottom of these slides really stop you!

-Smoke room! We were seated in a "cabin" that was heated to 40°C, and smoke was introduced in the room. That showed us how the smoke stays high and that the evacuation lights on the floor really are effective! There were red lights near the celing, very powerful. There was no way you could see them with such thick smoke. Now I know how useful these lights are!

-Cabin simulator! We were seated in a cabin of a 737 (fake one) but it looked really good. Overhead bins, seats, belts, windows etc.. We had the safety demonstration, the thing really was moving, simulating taki and takeoff. The crew really looked real. Then suddenly, lights went out, smoke in the cabin, we made an emergancy landing, brace position and emergency evacuation of the plane. Really nice!

-How to open the emergency exits! Now I know how heavy one of these doors are! We opened doors of a 737-200, and it's fine to open but damn heavy. Good thing to know! We also got to learn how to open one of the overvwing exits, these things really fall off easily!

All in all, great guys at British Airways, funny but serious lesson on how to behave, and happy to know how these exits look like when handeled.

If you want to make it, it's 95£ per person, is about 4 hours long, and there's even a B747 slide to do! Unfortunately, my company decided it was too dangerous... oh well, next time mabye!
I have some pics made with mobile phone, too short notice to take my camera (I was warned at the office at 12 that we were leaving a 1:15!) Just ask and I can post a few. Hope you enjoyed!

Rgds!
Philippe

It's not about AIRBUS. it's not about BOEING. It's all about the beauty of FLYING.

I did such trainings on frequent base during my days as F/A and by reading your expierience, there was quite some memory coming back.
Basically I think it's a very good thing to do and everybody flying on frequent base should attend a course as you did it here. I can see every day people on board, not paying attention at all if we tell them how to get out. They even take of their shoes before take off, so how does somebody want to run away if something is going to happen if he has no shoes on?
We leaned by the Swissair Trainers to work by the way to "expect the unexpected". This was a very good clue I still go with. When I get on a plane as a passenger I look where the exits around are located, how they work and where the equipement is. I also put the newspaper away for take off and landing and concentrate on what's going to happen.

A good thing they had with Swissair at the ZRH training center was what they called the "firehouse". This was a kind of partial mockup of a cabin behind a big window. Inside you found all kind of firefighting material. Each one had to go in, while the others could watch from the outside. The instructor had a controlboard which allowed him to put different things on fire. You can imagine, being inside the mockup, looking for the fire and the others outside start to laugh, because the smoke was behind you or in the overhead bin.

Also a good expierience was with the livejackets and the rafts in the swimmingpool. Somebody who didn't do it before can't imagine how difficult it can be to turn such a thing in the water or only to get in.

The best exercises were always those, we did everything wrong, because those were the exercises you really learned from. I think doing mistakes in an exercise in order to prevent doing them in a real case is a good thing.

Quoting PipoA380 (Thread starter):Slides! A lot of talk is going on about slide evacuations and how dangerous they are

The real dangerous part is to be carefull and not to burn a hand or an arm by sliding down as it's really fast. Be carefull!

Quoting PipoA380 (Thread starter):All in all, great guys at British Airways, funny but serious lesson on how to behave, and happy to know how these exits look like when handeled

I am missing those kinds of exercises in todays flying. What I intend to do with my crews, is to open all kinds of exits when we drop the plane at the end of the month with RUAG for a big maintenance event.

I am glad you liked your expierience. Please tell all your friends about, so hopefully as many as possible will attend such courses. When you fly again as a passenger, feel free to indicate to the crew, that you can be used as "able bodied passenger" meaning, that you have more knowledge than the average. This may be very helpfull in the case of a serious event and as an extra it may help you, getting the seat in the exit row

Cheers
Legacy135

*******I appologize for any misspelling, spell check is not working*******

Thanks for your comments, that was interesting! In fact we were told we now were "ABP" (able bodied passengers) and on my flight on saturday (via ZRH you know ) I'll see if it'll help me get the exit row

Cheers!

It's not about AIRBUS. it's not about BOEING. It's all about the beauty of FLYING.

I did a cabin evac once--helping Galaxy Airlines get their certificate in the 80's. They put a call for volunteers out through the local (Ft. Lauderdale, FL/US) newspaper, and as a bright-eyed air-minded youngun, how could I say no? I even roped several of my neighbors into coming along to the dark corner of FLL to the spot on the tarmac where a fading beauty of an L-188 Electra waited for her test.

After the FAA people chose a "representative sample" of the milling throng to participate, we boarded, and I went forward to the small cabin ahead of the central galley--trying to absorb every bit of the Electra experience while still paying enough attention to the drill so's not to screw it up. Sat down in an exit row, went through the standard briefing, worried about the sobriety of the man at the window exit...and then BOOM "evacuate the aircraft! This way, this way!" And...ol' drunkie looks up, starts giggling and making jokes. So I reach over him, pull the handle, and the whole window exit drops into his lap. I'm through the window in a flash and start yanking people out onto the (handily-placed) platform. Somebody eventually popped his belt and tossed him through the exit--how the FAA people missed his obvious drunken state I'll neve rknow.

They passed the test, got their certificate, and then in '85, the plane crashed in Reno, killing 70.

TAA (Trans-Australia Airlines) used employees to do the evacuation test on their first DC9. It took place in a darkened hangar at night, and was very realistic with noise and flashing lights, etc. I knew some of the FAs (air hostesses in those days) and was amazed just how strong and agressive they became when dealing with the 'emergency'. Very impressive. I had a bruise on my leg for more than a week after banging it on the over-wing window exit but it was a brilliant experience, and we did the evacuation in something less than 90 seconds.
Cheers
Bill

Great day out Philippe, I did the same course at Cranebank in September - those photos brought it all back !

I particularly remember the B737 door part - the instructor told us that the 737 was `old technology` in that the door opening is almost entirley human effort unlike the Airbus fleet and newer Boeings which are `assisted` by pneumatics etc. The guy in front of me had some difficulty when he started the opening sequence and afterwards said that it felt like a wardrobe falling on him ! I was a bit keyed up, but launched myself into it and swung the door open in one move.... the instructor asked me if I wanted a job

There was some very informative stuff during the discussions, things you normally wouldn`t think of, like counting the seat rows from the entrance door to your own seat as you walk down the aisle so if you`re down on the floor in a smoke filled cabin, you`ll know how far you have to go etc.

Did you also have a discussion about hotel safety ? We picked up some really useful info about what to do in the case of fires or suchlike.

Quoting ViveAF (Reply 7):
Did you also have a discussion about hotel safety ? We picked up some really useful info about what to do in the case of fires or suchlike.

Yes we did actually also have that, I found it a bit off-topic but it was interesting. Even though I don't think I would go down 4 floors just to see if the exit is well situated. Even if I should. I just stick on with the "counting the doors to the staircase".

Cool to see my pictures brought good memories back ViveAF! Have a good one,

Philippe

It's not about AIRBUS. it's not about BOEING. It's all about the beauty of FLYING.